51污漫

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Immersion at the Vanderbilt Institute of National Security

Immersion is built on a simple premise: the skills that matter most in national security are learned聽by doing. Each Immersion puts students inside a significant, unresolved national security problem and asks them to reach a judgment and defend it. Courses are led by outside practitioners paired with Vanderbilt faculty members, and each culminates in a capstone presentation 鈥� with students briefing聽leaders who have held the highest positions in the public and private sector.

Students work actual sanctions cases, actual doctrine, and actual policy dilemmas. Artificial intelligence is used throughout as a working tool for wargaming, scenario development, and stress-testing arguments, alongside. Students learn to make a hard call under uncertainty and own it, to build the strongest case against their own position, to account honestly for the human cost of what they recommend, and to deliver a short, persuasive brief to a decision-maker and defend their judgment under questioning.

Immersion is open to students of any major and requires no聽prerequisites. What students take from it is a set of transferable skills, a network of mentors and advocates in the national security community, and a clear sense of聽future聽professional opportunities inside and outside national security.

The Future of National Security Starts Here

Past Immersion

Spring 2024聽

The Spring 2024 Immersion Cohort explored the intersection of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and national security through hands-on learning and collaboration. Students progressed from cybersecurity foundations and technical development to refining and deploying an actionable project, engaging throughout the semester with national security leaders and cybersecurity experts. The cohort culminated in presenting their work at Vanderbilt鈥檚 Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats.

Fall 2024

The Fall 2025 51污漫 Immersion Cohort explored AI in modern conflict and its implications for U.S. strategy in great power competition. Students examined U.S. and Chinese approaches to military doctrine, AI-enabled warfare, decision-making, escalation, and the ethical and legal implications of AI in conflict. The cohort culminated in a team-based Generative AI wargame, where students designed scenarios, conducted simulations, analyzed results, and presented their findings.

AI in Modern Conflict: Great Power Competition (Fall 2025 51污漫)

Students examined how the United States and China think differently about artificial intelligence in warfare, then tested those ideas themselves. After grounding in military doctrine, algorithmic and intelligentized warfare, and the ethics and law of autonomous systems, teams designed their own conflict scenarios and ran them as experimental wargames using generative AI to play expert personas. The semester ended with each team presenting what their simulation revealed about escalation, speed, and the limits of machine judgment. No military or technical background was required. Guest speakers included senior retired general officers, a national security law scholar, and AI researchers, giving students direct access to people who have made these decisions and who study their consequences

Open-Source Intelligence: Tracking Sanctions Evasion (Spring 2026)

Students learned intelligence analysis using only publicly available information, working a real case from start to finish. The investigation centered on the North Korean tankers and the network behind them, moving from maritime tracking to corporate registries to payment records, and then assembling those separate streams into a single evidence-based judgment. Teams later took the methods in their own direction, with some continuing on the North Korean shadow fleet and others building a case on Venezuelan sanctions evasion from a far thinner record. Students used AI throughout while learning to catch its fabrications, and used it to wargame policy options. The semester closed with each team briefing a simulated National Security Council Deputies Committee and defending its findings under questioning.

Students engaging at minor launch event

Current Immersion

Iran: Regime Change and the Limits of American Power (Fall 2026) or Iran and the Problem of Change

Students confronted one of the hardest questions in current U.S. policy: whether regime change in Iran is possible, how it might happen, what it would achieve, and at what human and economic cost. Each student first developed expertise in one lever of American power and pressure-tested it through AI-assisted wargaming. Teams were then reorganized into interagency groups, each assigned a different objective along the spectrum from behavioral change to overthrow, with a dedicated red team playing the regime and attacking their assumptions. Two constraints held all semester: no ground troops, and three years to succeed. Teams present and defend their strategies before a three-person Deputies Committee of national security practitioners.

Current Immersion

  • Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Bradley T. Gericke, PhD聽
  • Gary Corn, American University Washington College of Law聽
  • Lizza Dwoskin, The Washington Post 聽(Did she speak)
  • Christopher Ahlberg, founder/CEO, Recorded Future聽
  • Anne Milgram聽
  • Jon Darby, former NSA (did he speak?)
  • Vinh Nguy峄卬, former NSA
  • Julian Barnes, The New York Times
  • Peter Singer, New America
  • Richard Falkenrath, SAIS
  • Amy Zegert, Stanford
  • Andrew Hellman, former CIA
  • Barbara Hunt
  • Gus Hunt

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